I was trying to avoid commenting on this travesty of a distraction in the media, but I read a great blog this morning on Oregon Blue by Karol Collymore about it. She echoes my own thoughts on the matter and I couldn't have said it better than her conclusion:

I thought it was just the mass media, cable news, rating seekers. But it's not. KOIN news 6 was talking about what the alleged perputrator was having for breakfast in jail. I'm sure they weren't the only ones, just the one I happened to see. So with all that the world is handing us to deal with - borderline rasict politicians, Bush press conferences, election fraud, children without health insurance, the working poor, and raging wars across the globe - I would like to point our sick obession with a long dead child. And one more greater point: There are still 43 missing children in Oregon dating back to 1982 (www.missingkids.com). This does not count the ones that have been found, dead or alive. The only one on the list you've heard of? Brooke Wilburger, another beautiful blonde.

While I would go so far as to disagree with Karol that the politicians she's talking about are not "borderline" but actually rabid racists, I totally echo her thoughts here. I think of the REAL things that are going on in this world. And I know that the rest of the world that has media access is actually hearing about those things, while our media obsesses on this thing. The real tragedy are the comatose American citizens who allow themselves to lulled into ignorance by this kind of constant "news."

"As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place." -Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz

"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." -Mark Twain

"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." -US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson

"Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exists because of their silent consent." -Bruno Jasienski